Ember to Ember
by Silverlight
Summary: They say that everytime a butterfly flaps its wings, a hurricane is created halfway across the world. What happens when the butterfly is caught in a storm of her own making?


Ember to Ember 

**Prologue: Fad**

*********

            "Will you marry me?"

            She continued to dress, pulling the sheer pantyhose over her legs.  "No Jyou, we've been over this before," she replied calmly.  That done, she began to search for her divinely expensive pumps; she really couldn't afford to lose another pair.

            "Why not?"                                                                                                      

            She fished out one from under the bed.  Where had she kicked the other one last night?  "Because you're not my type, lover boy.  And I don't want a husband right now."  Ahh, there it was, lying neatly against the wall.

            "So I'm only a convenient fuck?"

            She turned to face him then.  The pale grey of the sun filtered through the curtains to provide the cheap motel room a source of false illumination.  Her hair, exquisitely mussed, did nothing to hide the startling brown of her eyes, nor did they falsify the wild-eyed look of calmness in them.

            "You should know better than that."  Her voice, high and sweet, seemed to pierce right through him and enter his very soul.

            "Should I?  Because I don't."

            "Oh really?" she purred, crossing the room and bed, predatorily graceful in her sexual dance.  Her hands were pressed into the pillow on either side of his head, and her face was dangerously close to his.  "Are you sure you don't know, Jyou?" she breathed.

            He shuddered visibly and closed his eyes.  She kissed him lightly, chastely, on the lips before moving off the bed.

            "I love you," he blurted out.  She smiled at him, dimpling charmingly and disappeared into the washroom.

            "I know, lover boy.  I know," her voice echoed against the mildewed tiles.  It was the epitome of the cheap bathroom in the cheap motel room found on an indiscreet street in busy New York City.  The irony and cliché of their situation escaped neither one of them.

            He paused.  Then, "Don't you love me?"  It was a plaintive cry, or more accurately, a hopeful dirge.

            Her head appeared embedded in the doorframe as she glanced at him.  "I used to.  Maybe I still do, but I don't know whether or not I know what it is anymore," she said thoughtfully after a moment's thought.  Brutally honest to the last, the essential Tachikawa paradigm.

            "I think you're lying."

            From his position on the bed, he didn't see her eyes flash with some sort of unrecognizable sorrow.  "Think what you will, Jyou."  Once again, disappeared into the grungy dirt of the bathroom.

            "I know you're lying.  I know you love me."  Again, the mournful plea.

            "If you want.  Don't push it, lover," she replied calmly.  Here goes the moisturizer, essential for every woman.  There goes the foundation, to hide the imperfections.

            "There's that word again."

            Her eyebrows tilted upwards as she skilfully applied her concealer.  "What word?"

            "Love."

            "Ironic isn't it?  Would you be a sweetheart and help me find my purse?  I think I left my mascara in there, lover."  Her hands shook slightly as she blotted the creamy liquid into place.  Virgin face, blemished soul.  What a paradox life could be.

            "Don't dismiss it so easily," he pleaded.  He couldn't see her, but she shrugged anyway.

            "I'm not, lover, but there's no use in worrying when the problem can't be solved.  Life is short. No use in ruining my face with worry lines."

            He appeared behind her, her bag hanging limply from his hand.  He'd had the foresight to pull on a pair of boxers and his glasses.

            "You're so beautiful," he whispered as he gazed at her reflection.  

            "I'm glad you think so, lover," she said flippantly as she rummaged for her mascara.  Ahh, there it was.

            "Why?" he asked bluntly.  She arched a brow at him.

            "Why what?"  She knew full well what he meant, but she wanted to make him say it.

            "Why can't you admit you love me?"  

            She paused for an indistinct moment.  "Maybe I don't."

            His face reddened.  "You're lying!" he accused.

            She unscrewed the lid and peered at the brush.  Satisfied, she began to coat her lashes.  "Would I ever lie, lover?"

            "To yourself, perhaps," he retorted.

            "Ahh, so the psychologist speaks," she said, irony tinting her voice with violet shades.

            "I'm a doctor."

            "Same thing," she dismissed.

            "No it isn't," he said shortly.  She looked at him then, in the mirror.  He was gazing at her with unmasked adoration and self-loathing.  What a paradox, this man was.  She turned to face him, entwining her arms around his neck

            "Oh, I'm sorry lover.  Did I offend you?" she asked sweetly.

            He gazed at her, and she nearly flinched from what she saw in his eyes.  "You're above that, Mimi."

            She couldn't suppress her flush of embarrassed outrage.  "Apparently not," she said almost spitefully as she released him.  She began to apply the lipstick.  The essential coral.  She was pretty in pink, and nothing else.  He left her then.  She heard him pacing in the room with frantic and hurried steps.  Carefully, she finished the last of her routine and threw her cosmetics into her bag.  It wouldn't do to leave anything.  She peeked outside, and was surprised to see him sitting on the bed, his face buried into a cavern of his hands.

            "Sorry lover," she said suddenly, impulsively.  "Would you like me to make it up to you?"

            "It's fine," he replied, his voice muffled.

            She moved to him then with predatory speed.  With light hands, she pushed him backwards and straddled him.  Her dress rose on her hips in an involuntarily seductive manner, and she could feel him rise under her.  She leaned forward, shutting out all manner of space between them and purred, "Would you like money?  Sex?"  She knew she was making a mistake, but there was something about Jyou that made her do this to him.  "How about marriage?"

            Unexpectedly, he rolled her off of him with a sort of gentle brutality that took her by surprise.  "Don't play with me."

            Colour heated her cheeks.  "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

            "Don't apologize if you don't mean it," he said harshly.

            She suppressed a pained gasp as she collected her belongings.  "You don't know me very well, do you, lover?" she asked calmly as she stuffed her feet into her heels.  She stopped by the washroom to give herself a quick once over.  Makeup in place, the hair pinned back neatly to hide the night's indiscretions.  Clothes…she peered closely at the fabric, and brushed away an indistinct wrinkle.  Clothes, check.  Bag, check.   Pretty in pink and nothing else…there might be something behind that.  She made a mental note of it.  It'd make a fantastic campaign.  "I'll call you about next month."

            She left him then, in the seedy motel room that promised her the fruits of Eden.

*****

            It was common knowledge that Tachikawa Mimi had a lover.  However, not very many people knew his name, much less what he looked like.  Some even doubted his existence, attributing it to the fact that Mimi flirted with every human to come within a ten feet radius of her.  However, she turned down the advances of even the most persistent of men with a dazzling smile and the age-old line of, "Sorry darling; I only practice monogamy."  It never failed to make the most shameless of men blush.

            Ah, what a paradox she was.  If only she knew.

            They say that a butterfly's wings can cause a tornado halfway across the world.  
            They say that every time a bell rings, an angel has earned its wings.  
            They say that the tiniest spark can incite a flame.  
            They say that a phoenix rises from the ashes of its pyre.  
            They say that Eve offered Adam fruit from the forbidden tree.  
            They say that Pandora's box held hope at the very bottom.

            Ember to ember, ash to ash, we are the salt of the earth.  Ember to ember, ash to ash, we are the total of our longings.

            Ah, what a paradox she was.  She is.

*****

**Notes:**

AU, and I wanted to portray another side to Mimi.  I'm likely to never finish this, knowing me, but *shrugs*

Who knows; maybe I will this time.  XDXDXD

Preview: Chapter 1: Here 

-----

_Here, people look for heaven  
Living' in a fear of God.  
Losing themselves, hiding forever,  
Afraid of what they're not._  
                                    _-Here, Yoko Kanno f/Maaya Sakamoto_

----_-_

_            "Sure," he replied briefly, moving his coffee out of her way.  There were a few moments of silence.  Finally, he peered curiously over the edge of his paper.  She was beautiful, he noted clinically, but you would have to be to survive.  Brown hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail, but a few strategically placed strands softened and added to the concrete perfection.  Brown eyes, stared at him intently.  She was dressed impeccably, but what made her stand out was the aura of confidence that she exuded.  She knew she was beautiful, that she was dressed impeccably, and that not a single man or woman would dare contest that._

_            She was, he decided, the most sublimely untouchable woman he had ever seen in his short time in New York._


End file.
